Forecast

Toddler who died in car identified

Evan Fallor| on July 10, 2014

RIDGEFIELD -- Kyle Seitz had a routine before going to work: dropping his son at day care, grabbing a cup of coffee, then heading to his job on Grove Street.

But on Monday, Seitz, a test engineer for Owl Computing Technologies, didn't go to day care as usual, Ridgefield police said. He apparently forgot about 15-month-old Benjamin in the back seat when he went to the office.

The office building, which is set back from Grove Street, has a parking lot that wraps around three sides and is only partly shaded by trees. No one reported seeing the child in the car on a day that saw temperatures approach 90 degrees.

Seitz went out for lunch without noticing Benjamin in the back, sources familiar with the investigation told the News-Times, and it was not until after work when he went to get his son at day care that he realized the boy had been in the car all along.

Without calling police or 9-1-1, the sources said, Seitz drove straight to Danbury Hospital, where Benjamin was pronounced dead about 6 p.m.

While hospital personnel called police, Seitz became so distraught that he curled into a fetal position, the sources said. The boy's mother meanwhile had gone to the Ridgefield police station, though it was not clear how she knew something was wrong, the sources said. Not until she arrived at the hospital was she told of her son's death.

Ridgefield police have provided few details on the case, limiting their comments to three brief press releases Tuesday and Wednesday. The last release identified the boy but not his father, whose name police would not confirm.

"I can understand that," said First Selectman Rudy Marconi. "You have to respect the seriousness of this issue and tremendous hurt happening here."

The Chief Medical Examiner's office said the cause of death is still undetermined.

Seitz and his wife, Lindsey Rogers-Seitz, have two older children, both girls. No one answered the phone yesterday at their Ridgefield home.

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said, "I don't know details, but whatever they are, they're a horrible tragedy.

"I know the family is distraught and you have to pray for them," the neighbor said.

Seitz received degrees in computer and electrical engineering from North Carolina State University in 2001, according to his profile on LinkedIn. From 2001 to 2009, he worked as a test engineer for Alcatel-Lucent, a French telecommunications equipment company.

Lindsey Rogers-Seitz works as an attorney for Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Ridgefield.

Benjamin's death closely follows two other cases in Connecticut where parents left children in cars, one in Orange and one in New London. Neither incident was fatal, but both parents were charged with risk of injury to a minor.

Police have declined to discuss possible charges in the Ridgefield case.

On Tuesday morning, State Police issued a news release warning of the dangers of leaving children unattended in hot vehicles. The release did not mention the Ridgefield incident.

Kevin Borrup, associate director of injury prevention at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford, said a subtle change in the morning routine can cause parents to forget things they might ordinarily have no trouble remembering -- including that a child is in the back of a car.

When that happens, the dangers can mount quickly.

"As in a greenhouse, it can be much hotter inside the vehicle than the exterior temperature, so on an 80-degree day you find the internal temperatures in a vehicle could reach as high as 131 degrees," Borrup said.

Assisting Ridgefield police in their investigation are the State Police Western Connecticut Major Crime Squad and the state attorney's office in Danbury.

Now Playing:

"We assist any local police department who asks for assistance in any type of major crime incident," State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said. "Hence, the Ridgefield Police Department asked us to come out and assist in the processing of the crime scene."